EA Teases New Action Game

Action is "the largest sector in gaming."

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen made a few statements regarding a new IP that EA Motive is working. The studio, founded in Montreal, contains member Jade Raymond. Raymond was one of the developers working on the now canceled Star Wars game from Visceral. He works there with 65 other industry veterans, as mentioned about a year ago.

This untitled game was mentioned before by EA, and was then described as an Assassin’s Creed-style game. Now, Jorgensen calls it the beginning of “a brand new action franchise” to come out sometime in 2021. Apparently the game “looks fantastic”, is “very exciting,” and contains “a lot of new interesting gameplay that I don’t think anyone’s ever seen before.”

Bold words, as EA is not exactly known for allowing anything resembling innovation into games, unless it’s to do with micro-transactions. Nonetheless, Jorgensen explains that this action game comes from what the company sees as a gap in their current production line, between BioWare’s Anthem and first-person shooters. Action, according to Jorgensen, is “the largest sector in gaming.” Despite the company’s current focus on “sports and first-person shooters,” EA feels there is “a huge opportunity” with action games.

After the Star Wars: Battlefront II controversy, it seems rather cocky for EA to talk about a new game in the same interview as “uncapped” micro-transactions. Jorgensen is referring to EA’s move towards adding a live service to their EA Access and Origins Access subscription services.

EA wants to “give people a way to spend money on things they want to do” rather than “simply capping [customers] at $9 or $10 per month and that’s all they can ever spend.” There’s that tactic again, giving us an artificial price drop so we spend more. This works a lot like most online subscription services, only EA wants to reduce “the cost of trial to close to zero” and provide a “discount” to AAA games.

The legacy of EA’s Bad Business continues, read more of the saga here.